One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

Written by Omar El Akkad

Narrated by Omar El Akkad

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • PALESTINE BOOK AWARD WINNER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR CRITICISM • From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental values.

"[A] bracing memoir and manifesto." —The New York Times

"I can’t think of a more important piece of writing to read right now. I found hope here, and help, to face what the world is now, all that it isn’t anymore. Please read this. I promise you won’t regret it." —Tommy Orange, bestselling author of Wandering Stars and There There

On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times.

As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a chronicle of that painful realization, a moral grappling with what it means, as a citizen of the U.S., as a father, to carve out some sense of possibility in a time of carnage.

This is El Akkad’s nonfiction debut, his most raw and vulnerable work to date, a heartsick breakup letter with the West. It is a brilliant articulation of the same breakup we are watching all over the United States, in family rooms, on college campuses, on city streets; the consequences of this rupture are just beginning. This book is for all the people who want something better than what the West has served up. This is the book for our time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Feb 25, 2025
• ISBN: 9798217074075

Omar El Akkad

Omar El Akkad is an author and journalist. He was born in Egypt, grew up in Qatar, moved to Canada as a teenager and now lives in the United States. The start of his journalism career coincided with the start of the war on terror, and over the following decade he reported from Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and many other locations around the world. His work earned a National Newspaper Award for Investigative Journalism and the Goff Penny Award for young journalists. His fiction and non-fiction writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, Guernica, GQ and many other newspapers and magazines. His debut novel, American War, is an international bestseller and has been translated into thirteen languages. It won the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award, the Oregon Book Award for fiction, the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize and has been nominated for more than ten other awards. It was listed as one of the best books of the year by the New York Times, Washington Post, GQ, NPR, Esquire and was selected by the BBC as one of 100 novels that changed our world. His short story 'Government Slots' was selected for the Best Canadian Stories 2020 anthology. What Strange Paradise is his second novel.

Reviews for One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

[Caterin Juliana Pereira · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This made me feel everything between furious to hopeful, and should be required reading. ?

[carlahiresh · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

So profound and beautifully written! I listened to it twice, and I was deeply moved each time. I hope all those in my life will read it too.

[foof2you · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is a must read. El Akkad makes an interesting argument that this genocide in the Gaza Strip will be on all of us. It is indictment on all the western countries who watch and do nothing. This sounds vaguely familiar why the Allies did not go after the concentration camps during WWII. This is a book that makes you think.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent book about what has happened and continues to happen with the subjugation of Muslims in modern society, from being profiled and treated as second class citizens to downright genocide as is happening right now in Gaza. A shameful episode in world history with no end in sight.

[rivkat_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I’ll confess, I really have trouble with people who boycotted voting in 2024 because the Democrats are bad on Israel. This book helped me understand, and I’m glad I read it. It’s full of sharp, agonized observations about what being Muslim in the West means. Of Egypt, and implicitly of the US, he writes that it’s “a hallmark of failing societies, … this requirement that one always be in possession of a valid reason to exist.”

Basically, he argues, the promises of Western liberalism are false: “the entire edifice of equality under law and process, of fair treatment, could just as easily be set aside to reward those who belong as to punish those who don’t. A hard ceiling for some, no floor for others.” [Fundamentally, I think that we have to believe in the ideals in order to generate political power to implement these ideals more faithfully; although I understand the argument that the master’s tools will never tear down the master’s house, I’ve never seen a house destroyed without tools and I don’t know what the alternatives are for getting equality and fairness.]

But he’s excellent about the political appeal of evil when Democrats are so feckless: “Vote for the liberal though he harms you because the conservative will harm you more” starts to sound a lot like “Vote for the liberal though he harms you because the conservative might harm me, too.” Since you’re going to get harmed either way, voting for the liberal seems like adding insult to injury. After decades of protests without action, “is it not at least worth considering that you are not changing the system nearly as much as the system is changing you? … How empty does your message have to be for a deranged right wing to even have a chance of winning?”

Ultimately, he suggests, Americans are afraid of foreign Muslims’ well-justified rage, because we imagine what we have done as something that might be inflicted on us: “When it’s a herder on the other side of the planet burning an American flag after a drone operator in an Idaho strip mall mistook his children for terrorists, revenge becomes grotesque, the irredeemable realm of savages.” We worry: what if that herder came to lead a nation? What if he began “a decades-long campaign of retaliative obliteration against multiple countries. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine anything else?”

El Akkad suggests that negation, refusal, turning away may be the most acceptable option. After all, most Americans, especially the ones in power, have long turned away from suffering elsewhere. “When the world’s wealthiest nations decide, on the flimsiest pretext, to cut funding to the one agency that stands between thousands of civilians and slow, hideous death by starvation, it is a prudent anti-terrorism measure. But when voters decide they cannot in good conscience participate in the reelection of anyone who allows this starvation to happen, they are branded rubes at best, if not potential enablers of a fascist takeover.” Simply walking away, he argues, is “terrifying to political and economic power,” because “having taken these small steps, a person might decide it was no great sacrifice, and might be willing to sacrifice more, demand more.” Again, I’m not convinced—political and economic power seems to be tootling along fine, happy that most people don’t try to interfere with its workings. When exactly does the withdrawal and “sacrifice” become a “demand”? I fully believe that withdrawal can feel individually beneficial, but El Akkad’s version of hope seems more like “And then a miracle happens” than an explanation of how exactly we build new, better structures.

El Akkad writes that he lives here not because he loves this or any country but because he’s afraid of how easily he could be killed or his life destroyed elsewhere. But this motive—to stay out of harm’s way—is also a reason to vote for Democrats. Saying, as he does, that, given the inaction of liberals who claim to be against genocide, the open hostility of the right is at least honest is completely understandable. But it assumes he won’t get rounded up and denaturalized. Like it or not, that’s where we are: voting as harm reduction. And I don't see how we get to a different, better place without more voting, given the likelihood of, and likely outcome of if materialized, a non-voting-based social reorganization.

[shanerichmond · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An exceptional moral analysis of the genocide in Gaza. Omar El Akkad, a journalist and novelist, concludes that Gaza is not a failure of Western liberal democracy’s ‘rules-based order’, but further proof that no such thing ever existed. It’s the kind of book where you want to share every single paragraph.

[lynnb_64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a very moving and unsettling book. The author writes about the Israel/Hamas war and also uses that to anchor a broader analysis of modern society. He talks about how we turn away from seeing atrocities, such as the genocide in Gaza. Our leaders do it, the media does it as so do individual citizens. We do it because it's easier. Because of self-interest which benefits to a greater or lesser extent on the world working the way it does.

The author talks about the false advertising of Western democracy -- that there is fundamental equality and fair treatment for all. He talks about voting to avoid the worst rather than choosing to be the best society we can be. We vote against things; rarely for anything. I especially appreciated his chapter on language.

This is also a profoundly personal book as the author tells of his life and experiences and shares the deep angst he feels over world events. My review doesn't do this honest and thought provoking book justice. Read it.

[norabelle414 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A memoir of the author’s life, growing up under fascist regimes in the Middle East, and hoping his family could get to the “west”, where things might be easier. Life is easier, “on the other side of the bombs”, when his father gets a job in Canada. Omar grows up and goes into journalism, only to find himself the token middle-eastern reporter on every post-9-11 story. He witnessed and reported on horrible atrocities, and kept seeing the same thing over and over again - society encourages us to look away from those atrocities while they could be stopped, and then afterward we lament how awful they were and how someone really should have done something.

I was expecting this book to be more of a political treatise, but it’s kind of halfway between that and a memoir and didn’t quite click for me. There is a lot to appreciate, though. It’s much more positive than I was expecting - lots of acknowledgement of the people who do not look away from atrocities and stand up for human rights, and his takeaway message is that it’s important to do something, anything, even if it’s just attending a rally or speaking up for what’s right. He argues that doing one little thing could inspire someone else to do one little thing, or inspire yourself to do something slightly larger next time once you see how easy it is. Anything other than looking away.
I also appreciated his thoughtful explanation of the reasons why someone might choose not to vote for political candidates of either major political party, something oft derided in my circles, understanding and empathizing without dictating what anyone’s course of action should be.
I’m not sure it lives up to the eloquent social media post that spawned it, but there’s still lots to value.

[kalliegrace · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Heartbroken, free Palestine. If you want even a shred of credibility in being against genocide, at least some day, read this book.

[tlcooper_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad explores the attitudes of the West toward other people and other nations in language, particularly Middle Eastern nations, that is brilliant in its simplicity. El Akkad doesn't sugarcoat the message about how powerful people strive to hold onto power and expand that power at the expense of those who they see as powerless but also deem dangerous. One, Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This exposes how the media and various governments push the agenda of the powerful until the damage is done and can't be reversed before they pivot to talk about how horrible things were and then seek out quotes to prove they were always against the atrocity even when the body of evidence proves otherwise. El Akkad had me nodding along with his assessments, wincing at his observations, and blinking back tears at his descriptions. He weaves the past with the present and the personal with the societal in ways that demonstrate how the past informs the present and we are all connected. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This offers us the opportunity to learn from the past and be against the atrocities in Palestine and around the world in real time rather than looking back and being against it in hindsight while encouraging us to not only be against the atrocities but to speak up, speak out, and do what we can to change the world we live in.

[dono421846 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

El Akkad's essay on the genocide of Palestinians by Israel provides only the connecting thread to a deeper analysis of the moral condition of our society that not merely allows, but encourages us to turn our gaze away. "What purer expression of power than to say: I know. I know but will do nothing so long as this benefits me. Only later, when it ceases to benefit me, will I proclaim in great heaving sobs my grief that such a thing was ever allowed to happen."

The truth of the observation is quickly found in the manner in which we treat those who do NOT turn away, and retain sufficient moral fortitude to speak out. We've castigated them as anti-Semitic, which makes sense only if you accept the false claim that Jew and Israeli are synonyms, such that criticizing a state for its actions is equivalent to discrimination about a religious faith. Needless to say, the overview here is depressing in its brutal honesty of what is happening in Gaza.

The events reviewed only go so far as about February 2024, so the last eighteen months of ever-increasing effort to either drive the Palestinians out of Gaza, or eliminate them altogether (either of which, incidentally, satisfies the legal definition of genocide), are not included. in fact, it is Biden rather than Trump that comes in for the serious criticism. But we know how the story has spun out, from using student protests to undermine the universities of the nation, once a jewel of our society, and the bundling of all these fears into the larger desperation to clear our own country of all immigrants. And most recently, Israel hopes to divert the world's attention from the Palestinian genocide by attacking Iraq. None of this is going to end well, not for world affairs, but also for our moral constitution which finds these acts increasingly more tolerable and noncontroversial because deep down we benefit from the deeds, and have little inclination to act against personal interests in order to uphold a higher principle.

As stated by one of the book's reviewers, "With barely contained fury at the depths of Western hypocrisy, El Akkad manages to speak not just for himself but for all of us in the face of Israel's unspeakable violence against the Palestinians." Indeed.

[alanteder · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Recognizing the Hypocrisy
A review of the Knopf hardcover (February 25, 2025) released simultaneously with the Kindle & audiobook editions.

The book synopsis sums this up in a very effective way, but as I was reading it I just became distracted with the author's memoir interjections and actually kept putting it aside. So this is just a middling review.

The arc of Akkad's journey from Eqypt to Qatar to Canada and finally to the United States is told throughout as is his early career of writing for the University Press in Montreal and eventually the Globe and Mail in Toronto. That takes him eventually into war correspondence in Afghanistan and the resultant terrors of riding in convoys subject to IED attacks.

The treatment of his family and his own experience with racism and islamophobia is interspersed with reports on the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the hypocrisy of Western powers and media in its treatment.

These would have separately been two interesting books. Having them drift back and forth between the two was distracting and oddly disconcerting.

I found Isabella Hammad's Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative (2024) to be a more moving read, even though it starts off as being quite cerebral and academic.

[vive_livre · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This book is hard to exactly place. A non-fiction work, part memoir, part autobiography, part journalism. One thing that I'm very clear on is that it dredged a lot of things up that made me furious about the situation. How is this even happening?
A fuck you to shitlibs, wherever you are.

[wellred2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An important and unsettling book.

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I saw the interview El Akkad did at a McNally Robinson event and immediately put my name down to get the audiobook from my library's digital media source. I did this because in the interview he mentioned that he had narrated the audiobook and I thought that would be a good way to access it. I wasn't wrong but I wasn't really prepared for the anger that El Akkad expresses as he narrates.

El Akkad is Muslim. He was born in Egypt and moved with his parents to Canada. I believe he still holds Canadian citizenship but from this book I learned that he is also now a U.S. citizen. He doesn't really give his reasons for taking out citizenship in the one country that, without reservations, has supported Israel's attack on Gaza. Perhaps it is simply a matter of wanting to be able to continue living and working in the US, or perhaps, like Neil Young, he wants to be able to vote and express his political beliefs. Given how the US under President Trump is detaining more and more people who live in the US without citizenship, it is probably a good thing he did so but I still wonder about his motivations.

This book was spurred by the Hamas attacks on Israel in October 2023 and the out of proportion response by Israel. El Akkad doesn't support Hamas but he sure as hell doesn't support Israel. I don't see how anyone can support Israel's continuing attacks on the Gaza Strip but, for sure, after reading or listening to this book they will surely be against it. The book is not just about Gaza though. El Akkad also tells us about his life, his family, his careers. He was a journalist at the Globe and Mail for ten years before taking up writing literature and non-fiction. When he covered articles involving Islamic issues, like the war in Afghanistan, Guatanamo Bay, and even Canadian issues, he received backlash from people taking issue with his race and religion. One person wrote a comment "I don't trust any story about terrorism written by a guy called Omar."

I hope the title is right that people will be against this war one day; we should be against it now though.